REACH Homeschool Co-op

REACH Welcomes New Teacher for Expansion into Middle School for 2015—2016

We are happy to welcome Laura Ericson as teacher of our upcoming 7th and 8th Grade Science class. We asked Laura to introduce herself to REACH parents:

“Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire.” – William Butler Yeats

To me education is not about the presentation of information for information sake – filling the bucket.  Educators should teach a student: how to learn, how to think for one self, how to pursue an interest – lighting the fire. Filling the bucket does little more than produce test results; but developing the burning desire to learn frees the student from the mentality of the masses.

As students begin to learn independently, all educational information, “truths,” facts, theories, etc. need to be measured and weighed against the Word of God. The Bible and the ability to learn are the tools our students can always take with them; and as they pass from the influence of the educational instruction provided and/or arranged by their parents, these tools will serve them well.

Our goal as parents and educators should be to create students that are able to freely think for themselves, and have the confidence that any subject and/or fact, can and should be tested against God’s word.  These students may be marked by secular society as “brainwashed;” but I believe any student, so guided, is able to resist secular thought; and is thus freer to learn and think for him or herself.

“Apply your mind to instruction and correction, your ears to words of knowledge” – Proverbs 23:12

I have been involved with home schooling for the past 21 years, both with my own children and as an instructor of science & math for other home schooling families.  My children have graduated from high school and college, one is an engineer the other an artist; both have worked or sold work around the world.

God has given me both a gift and a passion for the subjects of math and science. I can never seem to learn enough about these subjects, basically I am a nerd. 

I’m enthusiastic about the subjects of math and science.  I firmly believe that if God did not create the universe, math and science as we use them today, would not be possible.  I hope my enthusiasm and nerdy point of view come across in the presentation of my lessons and labs. My mission is to teach my students; that science and the Word of God can be and should be studied at the same time.

I have also taught math and science at Heritage Christian School (HCS) here in Topeka. I worked at HCS for two years.

Exploring Creation with General Science – Part 1 will be taught this coming school year 2015-2016

Using Apologia Ministries’ Exploring Creation with General Science textbook, 

TOPS cards, Legos, along with videos about volcanoes and dinosaur fossils; we will study the following topics.

History of science

Scientific method

Simple machines

Archeology

Geology

Paleontology:

   Fossils and fossil records

Exploring Creation with General Science – Part 2 will be taught the following school year 2016-2017

Using Apologia Ministries’ Exploring Creation with General Science textbook, 

Janice Van Cleave labs, K’NEX, along with videos about life and many systems of the human body; we will study the following topics.

Classification of life

Energy

Human body

Human body systems

   Digestive

   Nervous

   Circulatory

   Respiratory

   Urinary

   Lymphatic